Awakening
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: Some people can't remember the last time they got a good night's sleep. Others avoid sleep any way they can, along with the nightmares or the nothingness it brings them. [Storybrooke AU. Promises to be very femmeslashy. So far Red Beauty with hints of Sleeping Warrior.]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hi! This is an attempt at a palate cleanser from the sort of thing I usually write, annnd it's about as light-hearted as I get. It will be multi-chapter, but I don't have a good idea of how long yet. It's extremely AU, but I love canon nods, so there'll be some of those. Will probably be very multi-shippy, in the most lesbian way possible.

Some of the ideas presented here were inspired by many a long and late-night rant session with Arizona Eris/Regina at thecursedstorybrooke . tumblr . com. The idea of cursed Aurora as a nurse at the hospital is not mine, but I can't remember where I first saw it.

Uhm...I think that's it. Feedback would be much appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter 1 — Interrupted Slumber**

Carrie Zoran could not remember the last time she'd gotten a full night of sleep. Ever since the incident with the coma patient—who, after having been just shy of a vegetable for as long as Carrie could remember, had not only woken up, but had wandered out into the woods in the middle of the night—Dr. Whale had insisted that someone with more knowledge than the volunteers be on hand twenty-four hours a day. Carrie needed the money, so she took the extra hours gratefully.

Funny, though. It seemed like every time she started saving a little money, something catastrophic happened and she was right back where she'd started. Still, she couldn't say she regretted finally moving out of her aunt's house. Carrie loved her Aunt Hyacinth dearly, but she had very little to do but to fuss over Carrie, who was nearly twenty, and who had recently begun to feel that she didn't know how to do anything on her own...aside from cooking, cleaning, and taking vital signs, which did not amount to very much.

According to the chart on Carrie's clipboard, the new patient in the corner bed was injured in the mine explosion. Possibly a minor concussion, but Dr. Whale didn't think there was anything else too serious. She'd drifted in and out of consciousness while he was testing her, so he'd decided to keep her here overnight, at least, just to be safe.

Nothing like that had ever happened in Storybrooke before.

The patient's name was Belinda Irving. She was thirty six, fair-haired and fair-skinned, and gave off the impression of being very tall and angular, though it was always hard to say with the angle of the hospital beds. Carrie approached the patient's bedside and prepared to take her vital signs, but as soon as she touched Belinda Irving's wrist, the woman's eyes shot open and she grabbed Carrie's hand roughly.

Her eyes were icy blue and glittering with alarm, and she stared at Carrie for several seconds before she blinked twice and murmured, "Oh." Her shoulders slumped slightly. "I'm sorry."

Carrie smiled nervously. "It's no trouble, Ms. Irving. I'm Carrie, your nurse for the evening."

Belinda Irving averted her eyes and let go of Carrie's hand. "What happened to me?"

"You were injured—"

"Yes, thank you for that nugget of unprecedented wisdom," Ms. Irving snapped. "_In what way_ was I injured, if you please?"

"Oh, ah..." Carrie glanced down at her chart, not because she needed the reminder, but because she needed an escape from her patient's cold gaze. "Possibly a minor concussion. Nothing else too serious. A few scrapes."

"Very well. When will I be released?"

Carrie swallowed uncomfortably and avoided meeting the woman's eyes. "Tomorrow morning, as long as you don't have any problems tonight. Dr. Whale wanted to keep you overnight for observation. The mine explosion freaked everyone out a little." She shrugged.

Ms. Irving narrowed her eyes. "I'm being kept here overnight for observation," she repeated slowly. Carrie shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Such incompetence astounds me. It seems that Dr. Whale's position as the only trained physician in Storybrooke has gone directly to his head. What are you staring at, girl? Go on about your business. You've kept me here to observe me. Do your job."

Carrie's hands were shaking. Belinda Irving barely spoke another handful of words for the rest of Carrie's shift, but she could feel those ice blue eyes glaring at her long after she'd changed clothes and begun her walk home.

* * *

Sometimes Ruby Lucas felt like she was always in trouble.

And deep down, she understood, really she did, that Granny was just trying to protect her or show she cared or something, but if Ruby went to bed at 8 P.M. and cleaned tables all day and did everything her Granny told her to, she would lose what was left of her mind.

Staying up late, drinking a little too much, wearing clothes that barely covered the essentials, and flirting with everyone who looked her way—which was in fact almost everyone...these were the things that almost made Ruby feel...well, something. Anything. Slightly more than dead inside.

Ruby wondered how it was possible that she'd never seen the girl playing pool before. She came here a lot-it was one of two bars in town-and she mostly knew the going out habits of everyone around her age.

This girl, whose satiny dress clung to her curvy figure and whose silky, light brown hair half-veiled a wicked, red-lipped smile, seemed impossible to have overlooked, and yet, could she be new? Emma Swan was the first person who had ever even visited Storybrooke in Ruby's lifetime. It seemed sort of unlikely that another beautiful young woman should breeze through so soon thereafter.

Suddenly the wicked, red-lipped smile was directed at Ruby, and she realized she'd been caught. She smiled good-naturedly and turned back to her seat at the bar, as though their eye contact had been accidental and not the direct result of Ruby's rudeness.

Not a minute later, Ruby felt a light tap on her shoulder. "Do you come here often?"

Apparently the unidentified pool player was not so easily fooled. Ruby turned around to face her, trying to push her awkwardness out of her mind as she shrugged. "Now and then. I've never seen you here before, though."

"You would know, I'm sure," said the girl, still smiling, her greenish-blue eyes sparkling with mischief. "You've gotten a good enough look at me by now."

Ruby couldn't remember the last time she had blushed. "Sorry," she muttered. "It's weird, seeing strangers here, you know?"

The girl tilted her head to the side, twirling a lock of shiny hair around her finger. "You think I'm weird?"

"I—no, I didn't mean..."

She giggled and Ruby wondered how she was going to make her escape. She'd never felt so embarrassed in her entire life.

"I was only teasing," she said. "I'm Lacey. Lacey French. Now I'm not a stranger to you anymore."

"Oh." Ruby narrowly avoided stupidly repeating her name back to her a few times. She settled for mulling it over in the safety of her own mind, and after what was possibly a slightly awkward pause, she came up with something reasonable to say. "Any relation to Mo French?"

Lacey looked away and waved to the bartender while she nodded. "He's my dad," she said simply, then ordered a drink, effectively cutting off that line of questioning.

"Oh, ah...I'm Ruby," said Ruby after another awkward pause. "Ruby Lucas."

"And now you're not a stranger to me anymore," said Lacey, taking the drink the bartender offered her and raising it in Ruby's direction.

* * *

Violet Zhu awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of nothingness. A fraction of a second later, there was a light, hesitant rapping at the window of her second-story bedroom. She later decided that the sound and not the anticipation of it was what had woken her.

She all but rolled out of bed and opened the window that led to the fire escape, where Carrie Zoran was kneeling awkwardly and shivering. "What time is it, even?" she muttered sleepily.

"I d-don't know...I-I'm sorry..."

"Come in. It's freezing." She offered her hand to help Carrie over the windowsill and then grabbed the comforter from her bed and wrapped it around Carrie's shoulders. "Is something wrong?"

Carrie wrapped the comforter tighter around herself and sat on Violet's bed. "Couldn't sleep," she said. "I got to bed so late anyway and then...I kept having these weird nightmares."

Violet closed her window and sat next to Carrie, propping herself up against her pillow and trying to fight her drowsiness. She glanced at the clock—4 A.M. She'd have to be up in a couple of hours, anyway.

"Anything noteworthy?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"Weird things...fire...dragons...thorns? I don't know. Also this new patient who was injured in the mine explosion. I kept seeing her face over and over. And I kept hearing her laugh."

Violet frowned. "Did she laugh a lot when you talked to her?"

Carrie shook her head. "She didn't laugh. She was actually kind of...cold. Unkind, almost. I couldn't tell you what I thought her laughter might sound like, but I could hear it in my dreams. God, I'm losing my mind..."

Violet patted Carrie's shoulder in a drowsy and somewhat awkward attempt at comfort. "No, you're not. People have weird dreams sometimes. It happens."

"I guess she'll be gone in the morning and I won't have to deal with her anymore."

"Who, the rude new patient?"

Carrie nodded.

"Well. Good, then."

"Sorry to wake you."

"It's okay," Violet said with a shrug which was anything but nonchalant. Carrie was the only person she'd ever really considered a friend. Didn't friends sometimes wake each other up in the middle of the night? "Do you want to sleep over?" She felt sort of uncomfortable asking for some vague reason she wouldn't be able to articulate if she tried, but she didn't want Carrie to get sick or something. "It's really cold."

Carrie nodded. "Thanks, Vi."

Violet smiled briefly and moved over to one side of her bed, readjusting her pillow. The bed and the pillow were really too small for two people, even small people such as Carrie and herself, but she reasoned that she'd be up again soon, anyway, and didn't friends sometimes have sleepovers in beds that were too small?

Carrie covered Violet with the comforter and then climbed under it, herself. Violet shivered involuntarily when she felt the bed shift under Carrie's weight and the warmth of another body so close to hers, but she was too tired to think very much about the feeling, and she quickly succumbed to a decidedly pleasant, if unpleasantly short slumber.

* * *

Lacey awoke, to her immense displeasure, with the sunrise. She frowned and squinted and realized that the reason she'd awoken to something so vile was that she wasn't in her own room. Her taste in men really must need some tweaking if she was going home with strangers who liked sunlight in their eyes first thing in the morning.

She covered her eyes with her arm and hoped to God it wasn't that creep Gold. He was very nice to her—too nice. It was unnerving, and she sometimes worried that she might finally give into his ardently awkward advances after a few too many shots of tequila.

Oh well. Better to know sooner rather than later. _Rip it off, like a Band-Aid, Lacey,_ she told herself. Quickly, Lacey uncovered her eyes and turned her head to inspect the warm body next to her. She raised her eyebrows.

_Well._

Her bedfellow certainly wasn't Mr. Gold. A mass of long, shiny brown hair, so dark it was almost black, gave that away right off. If that weren't enough to convince her, the legs which had been exposed when Lacey shifted the blankets to avoid the harsh light of morning, were pale, smooth, and distinctly feminine.

Lacey blinked a few times, trying to clear up for herself the events of the previous evening. After some consideration, she remembered a beautiful, dark-haired girl with a warm smile who'd been staring at her. She couldn't remember when they'd first kissed, but rather, her memory picked up again right in the middle of a series of fiery kisses which had resulted in the shedding of clothes.

Lacey felt the slightest bit disappointed that she couldn't remember more, because the few brief flashes that came to mind seemed extremely pleasant. Still, perhaps she hadn't missed very much more, because she, at least, was still wearing her bra and panties. She decided against removing the comforter from the body of her new friend, whose slumber remained thus far undisturbed, to assess the status of her undergarments.

Lacey considered maneuvering the comforter so that it would shield her eyes from the rising sun in the hopes of catching another hour or two of sleep, but she quickly decided against that, as well. Presuming her bedfellow was indeed Ruby Gorgeous-smile, she was a heavy sleeper, and Lacey had the unique opportunity of avoiding an awkward morning after encounter. Storybrooke, Maine was not a large town. If she wanted to run into Ruby again—and she most certainly did—she wouldn't have to try very hard.

It was a little after six when Lacey had donned her dress and jacket and collected her bag, and the streets were mercifully deserted. A bit too early for the teachers and schoolchildren to be about, way too early for everyone else. People slept late in Storybrooke, for lack of anything else to do. Lacey only passed one person on her walk of shame, the beautiful Asian woman with the eternally solemn demeanour, whose name was some kind of flower (Rose? Pansy?) and who taught spinning classes at the gym. Lacey wondered who exactly attended her 6:30 A.M. class, but this was not the morning she planned to find out.

When Lacey finally made it back to her small apartment, she made short work of her dress and heels and forced herself to hop in the shower before she crashed again.

She was bartending tonight. She didn't mind the job other than the occasional creep. (She hoped Gold wouldn't be there all night, staring at her like a lost puppy, offering over and over again to walk her home.) It paid the bills, anyway, it gave her something to do, and her drinks were free whether her boss wanted them to be or not.

Still, there was something slightly depressing about sleeping the day away. She never went to bed at a normal hour, and she probably wouldn't be able to if she tried. As a result, by the time she felt even marginally rested, most of Storybrooke was rolling up the sidewalks for the evening. She had to set an alarm and make a special trip to complete simple tasks like going to the bank or buying groceries, often while coaxing herself out of a killer hangover.

Her father's suggestion—which he was more than happy to offer up in a variety of unhelpful ways—was to stop drinking. Lacey found it unfathomable that he, a heavy drinker, himself, couldn't understand why this simple solution was so completely ridiculous. Lacey could barely handle her life now, when she spent the better half of it intoxicated. The idea of facing each day—the monotony, the aimlessness, the strange sensation that she was trapped in some kind of endless cycle...well, it made her want to go back to sleep, to be sure.

After the least refreshing shower of her life, Lacey grabbed the nearest comfy clothes she could find, closed the blinds extra-tight against the offending light of day, and burrowed under her comforter to ignore everything that was wrong in the world for as long as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Okay, it took me long enough, but here is chapter 2! I might do some tweaking towards the end eventually. Since there are a lot of characters, all with their own thing going on right now, I wanted to make sure I was sure what I was doing early on so it doesn't get convoluted later. Hopefully I have been successful. Thank you so much for reading, and I would of course love some feedback! I'd especially like to know how each of the characters comes off, especially Emma, since I've never written her before.

* * *

**Chapter 2 — Missed Connections**

Violet's 6:30 A.M. spinning class had, until very recently, five dedicated attendees: Mary Margaret Blanchard, Jacqueline Cooper, Kathryn Nolan, Ellen Bennett, and Belinda Irving.

A couple of weeks ago, Jac and Ellen had begun missing the occasional class. Violet didn't think too much about it-their lives had probably just gotten busier. She knew all too well how difficult it could be to wake up at this hour. On Tuesday of last week, both Mary Margaret and Kathryn had stopped attending altogether. When Violet mentioned this coincidence to Carrie, Carrie posited that they might be avoiding one another. Apparently the coma patient who had made the recent miraculous recovery was married to one of them and shamelessly flirting with the other. Violet couldn't remember which.

Yesterday morning, Belinda Irving, a thirty-something housewife with a killer body, perfect blonde curls, and an inexplicably cold expression, had been the only one in attendance. Violet had shrugged and smiled uncomfortably five minutes after class was supposed to begin and had conducted it at usual. Belinda's expression had not changed, and she had followed instructions and left without comment.

Violet guessed it wasn't a surprise that she hadn't returned.

Fifteen minutes after class was supposed to start, Violet sat down against the wall of the small spinning room and wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn't decide what about this made her so upset. Maybe it was just that she wished she'd stayed in bed for another hour. Maybe it was that even her 5:30 P.M. class, which was full of loud, boisterous, chatty people, didn't make her feel any less lonely than she did right now.

She considered calling Carrie, but decided against it. Carrie had at this point gotten even less sleep than Violet had. One of them might as well wake up feeling rested. Instead, she sat in the corner of the spinning room and stared listlessly at nothing for fifteen more minutes, at which time she relocated her confusing pity party to Granny's Diner and ordered a large coffee and pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on top. This combination had always been a foolproof cure for many varieties of bad mood.

* * *

Regina Mills knew all too well the sensation of her world falling down around her ears. In the Old World, she'd experienced it almost constantly. Every moment of every day she'd felt as though every step she took was a desperate, flailing attempt to hold onto the shattering pieces of the existence she'd fashioned for herself.

The twenty-eight years she'd spent witnessing the exact same twenty-four hours had been a welcome change from that feeling.

Those years hadn't been precisely pleasant, but Regina had found ways to cope. Every day, she went somewhere different, met someone different, tried to stir up trouble in some new way which would be forgotten by the next morning. A few times, she'd stayed up all night to see what mundane things occurred after dark. (By far the most interesting was the teenager with a long blonde braid who snuck out of her mother's house to do nothing more than look at the stars.)

One would think Regina would have gone completely insane after a few years, after she'd seen absolutely everything that could ever possibly happen in Storybrooke. She had expected it, really. She hadn't expected to take solace in the predictability of her days. She hadn't expected to feel such venomous hatred toward the person who had finally shattered the monotony.

The day Emma Swan had decided to stay in town—despite, or more probably in response to Regina's warnings—time had started moving. The things Regina did suddenly had consequences again (in the eyes of more people than just Henry) and it seemed that every new step Emma took into Storybrooke caused some new catastrophe.

It hadn't taken long for Regina to link the explosion in the old mines to Emma's acceptance of her new position as the sheriff's deputy. Storybrooke was a carefully controlled sort of vacuum. Nothing like that happened by accident.

With this in mind, Regina felt compelled to inspect the handful of people injured in the explosion. They might be completely irrelevant, or at the very least unrelated to one another, but now that Rumpelstiltskin, who was known in this world as Mr. Gold, was acting like his usual shifty jackass self, Regina wanted to be as wary as possible of the kinds of hidden agendas she had almost managed to leave behind her.

The first four patients she saw were only vaguely familiar to her. The Curse told her their names and occupations in a whisper that she no longer recognized as separate from her own thoughts, and if she'd tried harder, she could have found out more about their individual curses or their names in the Enchanted Forest, but the information seemed useless to her at the moment. She mentally filed away their faces in case they became significant and asked Dr. Whale to point her to the fifth and final injured citizen. Shortly thereafter, Regina's perception of what was irrelevant shifted abruptly.

Regina was reminded of an afternoon—sunny and mild, like any other—about a year and a half after she had first awoken in Storybrooke, Maine.

"Good afternoon, Madame Mayor."

Regina had looked up from her small shopping cart, prepared with the usual false smile, only to set eyes upon one of the last people she had ever expected to see again. "Good afternoon, ah..." she floundered for a moment before the name—the false name, the name provided by the Dark Curse—rolled off of her tongue. "Belinda."

Belinda Irving smiled thinly in return and pushed a curly lock of unkempt blonde hair out of her eyes as she returned her attention to the small selection of pastas at the local grocery store. Her clothes were simple: a white collared shirt and a brown skirt that accentuated her slender waist, covered by a dirty apron. The overall effect was of a housewife from a sitcom out of the 1950s who had had a particularly rough day, and the idea that this role should be filled by this particular person made Regina want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Regina had wracked her brain for something to say to incite conversation—she was dying to find out more about this woman's life—but she found herself at a loss. She was left staring, possibly open-mouthed, standing in the middle of the aisle with a can of beans in her hand.

Probably sensing that Regina was lingering awkwardly, Belinda looked up again, and again, the familiarity of her face in contrast with the complete foreignness of her very essence, caused Regina's heart to wrench. "Was there something you needed?" she asked.

What was unusual about this sentence was the obvious emotion behind it. Belinda did not_ want_ there to be something Regina needed. She sounded tired—exhausted in the way people were when their exhaustion extended back _as long as they could remember_.

Regina had never tried showing compassion to the people of Storybrooke, and she wasn't even certain what would happen if she did, but the silent anguish in Belinda's eyes was the silent anguish in the eyes of every victim of the Curse, and Belinda had been...well, as close to her friend as anyone had ever been.

"Pardon me," said Regina at last. "You look like you've had a hard day."

Belinda smiled tightly, another unfamiliar expression. "A woman's work is never done," she said, her voice cracking. "I'm sure you understand. How is your son?"

Before Regina could think of a response to this bizarre comment, a man appeared at the end of the aisle. "Are you almost finished?" His voice was tired, too. Almost gruff. "I need to get back to the office."

Regina looked up at him. His name—his Cursed name, anyway—was Philip Irving. _Oh, this is cruel, Rumpel_, she thought. She didn't recognize Philip Irving. The real Philip was a cannery worker by some generic name she hadn't bothered to remember. This Philip was one of the untold millions, as Emma Swan so unfortunately put it.

"I'm sorry," said Belinda, her voice laden with melancholy. "I was just talking to Mayor Mills. I'll be there in a second."

Regina smiled again, uncomfortably. "Sorry to keep you."

"No trouble," she said, but it was trouble. Everything about her said it was a lot of trouble.

"Henry is fine," Regina said with a curt nod. She never thought she'd live to see the day when her skills as a liar so easily surpassed those of her friend.

"Good. Good. Well. I must be off. It was nice to see you, Madame Mayor."

"Nice to see you, too," Regina responded as Belinda Irving brushed past her with an armful of groceries. "Nice to see you, too," she murmured again to herself, "old friend."

"Madame Mayor," said Belinda in the present, from her hospital bed.

"Hello, Belinda." As usual, faced once again with the troublesome vision of her friend who was not her friend, Regina couldn't think of anything to say.

"Did you want something?" Belinda had asked her this question innumerable times, though she probably didn't realize it. Regina always found herself wanting to say a thousand things and coming up with only idle chatter that meant nothing.

"I came to wish you a swift recovery," said Regina with a forced smile.

"How very kind," Belinda replied flatly. "I wonder, since when have I become so important as to warrant a personal visit?"

"Come now," said Regina uneasily. "We're friends."

Belinda was silent for a moment, but her expression did not change at all. "You have a decidedly loose definition of friendship."

Regina averted her eyes with a nervous chuckle. There was a time when her friend's icy stare wouldn't have phased her one bit, but now, it was...she couldn't put her finger on it, exactly. "I suppose I do," she agreed quietly.

Regina found it downright depressing that she did not know how to get through to Belinda. She knew a handful of facts about the misery that was Belinda's Cursed existence, but she didn't know what to say to get her to talk. She didn't know what to do to get her to listen. She could just start talking, spilling her soul the way she once had in the early stages of her friendship with Maleficent...but that was Maleficent and this was Belinda. Belinda had that cold gaze, and behind her eyes, there was only a vague, resigned sort of sadness.

"So we're friends, in your book," said Belinda after an awkward silence. "Why? Of what use am I to you?"

Regina swallowed, because it was so completely Maleficent and yet so completely not and she couldn't explain it. _I'm sorry_, she wanted to say, but for what? She had done this to her friend, but she couldn't apologize because she couldn't quite name what she'd done, and Belinda wouldn't understand if she tried.

She tried to think of something relatively straightforward to say...or at the very least something truthful. Maleficent had been extremely uncomfortable with vague discussions and she could spot dishonesty a mile away.

"You don't seem to have many friends, yourself," she said. Perhaps it wasn't the kindest thing she could have said, but it was certainly straightforward and truthful.

Belinda's expression did not change. "What good would having friends do me?"

Regina shrugged. "Someone to visit you in the hospital."

"Were you planning on extending my visit?"

"You're awfully suspicious for a happy homemaker," Regina countered coolly. "Do you have a secret life you'd like to cover up?"

"My life is my business, Mayor Mills," Belinda replied, her expression still unnervingly neutral. "I didn't ask to participate in this conversation."

Regina wasn't certain why she felt like crying. It wasn't as though she and Maleficent had parted ways on good terms in the Old World, and if anything, she had brought her old friend's coldness upon herself. Still, there was something profound difference between Belinda and Maleficent, and it left Regina feeling more alone than she ever had in this world.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you," she said simply before making a quick exit.

* * *

Ruby made her way down to the diner at least half an hour late, humming a merry tune and blithely ignoring Granny's halfhearted glare of disapproval. She took Violet Zhu's order—pancakes with fruit and whipped cream, which was the only indicator of a bad mood Ruby had ever been able to discern, as Violet's expression was always serious and slightly somber—and wiped off the counter before a very gloomy Mary Margaret entered the diner, closely followed by a very sleepy Emma Swan.

"Good morning, ladies!"

Both Mary Margaret and Emma looked up at her like she was bringing them terrible news, but Ruby's parade was not to be rained on today.

"Hey, Ruby," said Emma at last. "Glad to see someone in high spirits. Can I get a coffee?"

Ruby nodded and both she and Emma turned their eyes to Mary Margaret, who was gazing dejectedly at the door, clutching a tattered paperback to her chest

"Uh..." Emma spoke again, "I think she might need a healthy dose of hot chocolate."

"Hmm?" Mary Margaret perked up slightly. "Oh. Yes. Please. With cinnamon. Thank you, Ruby."

Ruby had recently come to the horrifying realization that she and Mary Margaret were around the same age. She guessed Mary Margaret had always had a penchant for high-collared shirts, frumpy sweaters, and sensible flats, and she guessed it was mostly based on this superficial judgement that she couldn't imagine Mary Margaret hitting the town (such as it was) after dark, but there was something infinitely older and sadder in Mary Margaret's entire essence than in Ruby's, and it invariably left Ruby feeling very uncomfortable around her. In her mind, regardless of numbers, Mary Margaret was an Adult and Ruby was still hovering just above Teenager.

As she set about preparing coffee and hot chocolate, Ruby wondered idly what she didn't know about Mary Margaret. She should invite her out or something. Maybe try to dispel the weird idea she had of Mary Margaret as somehow not in her age group. Mary Margaret didn't seem to have a lot of friends, and she always looked a little lonely. Maybe everyone thought of her the way Ruby did, as a capital-A Adult. Maybe she could use someone to talk to about her secret wild adventures. Ruby almost giggled to herself at the thought.

* * *

Emma Swan had had one hell of a month.

Literally the exact second she 'd decided it was time to resign herself to the shitty existence she'd carved out for herself over the past ten years, this nutty kid with a wild imagination who'd never wanted for a single thing in his life showed up at her door and turned her sad, lonely little world upside down.

And now what exactly was she doing? Living in the spare room of some schoolteacher who was a dead ringer for Snow White (a fact Emma would never admit to Henry) and who was probably only being so nice to Emma because she was terrified of her. She was deputy to an undeniably hunky small town sheriff who, she had just recently learned, was a little bit more of a jackass than she'd originally realized. Sheriff Graham was apparently consistently sleeping with the mayor, who was incidentally also equal parts gorgeous and a jackass.

Regina Mills was also Emma's biological son's adoptive mother, and if it weren't for her crazy bitch vibe and thinly-veiled threats, Emma would have rolled on back to her pathetic half-life in Boston and privately brooded about the matter for the rest of her life with no further incident.

So Emma had stayed, just to make sure Henry was okay. And then she'd had some trouble reaching a conclusion, so she'd stayed longer. Sure, Henry was a great kid in a lot of ways, but his teenage years were a little far off to warrant such an aggressive rebellion against Tiger Mom Regina. He was really smart—too smart for his own good—but for one reason or another...small town with nothing to do, stringent home life, a hard time making friends...his vivid imagination had gotten the better of him.

Henry had informed Emma during the course of their first meeting that the town of Storybrooke, Maine was under a curse. All of its citizens had been robbed of their identities—that is to say, the identities of beloved storybook characters—and trapped in the modern world, living false lives under false names. As if that weren't enough, the curse was enacted by the Evil Queen (like, from Snow White), whose false identity was none other than Mayor Mills.

Honestly, Emma admitted privately, it wasn't as big of a leap as she wanted it to be. The more time she spent in Storybrooke, the more she noticed that its citizens were not quite as cheerful and carefree as she'd initially believed. Quiet misery lingered in the eyes of everyone Emma met. And it wasn't hard to see how the blame for all of the world's ills, in Henry's eyes, had fallen on Regina's shoulders. It was just an extremely exaggerated version of the kind of thing that happened when kids came to the realization that their parents weren't perfect.

Anyway, Emma couldn't say she was exactly unhappy with the sudden and drastic change in her circumstances. She had a steady job that surprisingly kept her on her toes, a warm bed, and a lot of new and satisfyingly quirky acquaintances. She got to hang out with the kid she'd never really wanted to give up, and he had offered her the very painful suggestion that the schoolteacher Snow White lookalike woman she lived with—who, by the way, was probably a few years younger than Emma—might be her mother.

"Good morning, Mary Margaret."

"Oh...hello, Violet," said Mary Margaret in the present.

It was completely ridiculous. Probably the most ridiculous thing Emma had ever heard. It should have sounded like a joke, _Mary Margaret is Snow White and Snow White is your mom_, but instead it felt like a punch to the stomach and Emma couldn't stop thinking about it at inopportune times.

"—so sorry about...so sorry I've been missing class," she was saying to the stranger at the next table. "I've been...lots of work. And things. Lots of things."

"Class?" Emma asked.

Mary Margaret's head whipped around. "Oh! Emma! Have you met Violet? This is Violet. She works at the gym. Violet, Emma."

"Hey." Emma reached out to shake Violet's hand with a smile.

Violet returned the smile briefly and gave her a curt nod. "If you like spinning, my 6:30 A.M. class could use a boost in attendance."

Emma snorted. "Sorry. Unless you count all-nighters, this is the earliest I've been awake in years."

"Maybe I'll cancel it," said Violet with a shrug. "I could use the extra sleep, myself."

"Cancel it?" Mary Margaret echoed, sounding vaguely horrified. "Who was there this morning?"

Violet averted her eyes uncomfortably, but before she could answer, the door to the diner opened, and the telltale click-clack of heels only one person would bother wearing at this hour caused every single person in Granny's Diner to turn around.

"What a happy coincidence," said Regina Mills as the door closed behind her. "Just the two people I wanted to see."

"Seriously?" Emma murmured under her breath. It was way too early to be dealing with Regina's bullshit. Mary Margaret's eyes widened like a deer caught in the headlights, and Emma thought for a second she might actually be trembling. _Snow White and the Evil Queen_, her brain offered unhelpfully.

"Ms. Blanchard, how very charitable of you, taking in riffraff off the streets," said Regina, coming to rest by their table. "Since you seem inclined to pick up strays, I'd like to advise you to let David Nolan find his way back to his rightful home."

Mary Margaret turned several shades of red and blinked her doe eyes about six times before she managed to respond. "I haven't done anything."

"What you have or haven't done is not the issue," Regina's lip curled ad Emma tried to focus on hating her and not on how hot that expression was. "I'm merely offering you a piece of friendly advice." The way she bit out the word friendly gave Emma an uncomfortable chill. "As for you, Deputy, may I have a word?"

Emma raised her eyebrows. "What, I don't get a public berating?"

Regina gave Emma her signature Cheshire Cat smile. "Strictly business, Ms. Swan."

"Fine." Emma responded with a tight smile of her own and pushed herself away from the table.

"I wanted to speak with you about those injured in the mine explosion."

Emma raised her eyebrows. "People were injured? I thought no one was around!"

Regina sighed. "Yes, Ms. Swan, people were injured. Five of them, to be precise. I've written down their names for you, and I'd like you to keep an eye on one in particular."

"Sorry, Madame Mayor," Emma said with a half-chuckle of disbelief. "I think you've mistaken me for your puppet Sheriff."

Regina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She handed a piece of paper to Emma, along with a withering expression which left no room for argument. With a thin smile, Emma took the piece of paper and glanced at the meaningless names written in neat, spiraly script.

"Keep an eye on one of these people?" she murmured skeptically. "What's your idea of keeping an eye on someone?"

Regina's smile was slightly chilling. "Nothing drastic, dear." (Emma clenched her fists subconsciously in response to the mayor's archaic endearment.) "The woman in question is Belinda Irving. Mid-thirties, homemaker, married to Philip Irving. Ask around. Friends, neighbours. Make sure nothing unusual is going on."

"And what?" asked Emma with a shrug. "Report back to you?"

Regina quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'm glad I make myself clear," she said, then turned on her heel and exited the diner.

Emma folded the list, stuffed it in her shirt pocket, and returned to the table, where Ruby was chatting with Mary Margaret and Violet.

"-so I was thinking we could all get together tonight! You know-have a girls' night? Oh, you can come, too, Emma! Just leave the badge at home."

"Thanks for the offer," said Emma, suddenly feeling acutely how little she'd slept. "But it turns out I have more crap to deal with than I thought."

"What did the mayor say?" asked Mary Margaret. "She isn't giving you more trouble, is she?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Of course she is. She just came by to be a colossal pain in the ass as usual. It's nothing I can't handle."

"Come on, Emma," said Ruby. "Take one night off?"

Emma looked up at Ruby and her ever-sunny smile and couldn't help but to smile back. "Talked me into it," she said, reaching for her coffee.

* * *

At approximately 2:36 P.M., Carrie woke up screaming.

She clasped her hand over her mouth and tried to calm her breathing, glancing frantically around the room to remind herself where she was and who she was. She was in Violet's room. She'd come here last night when she couldn't sleep. Violet had let her stay. She was not facing a dragon. Dragons were not real, and they were most certainly not that patient from the hospital. She was not watching someone she cared for die. She didn't even know that man. She'd never seen his face before.

Carrie's shift at the hospital began at six. She'd started taking night shifts in the hope that her nightmares might not occur if she slept during the day. Of course she knew that this was completely ridiculous, but knowing didn't stop her from wishing.

She left through the front door like a normal person. Violet shared the apartment with two other girls, but they were mercifully nowhere to be found. She moved through the afternoon in a sleepy haze, and it took almost all of the time she had to get home, shower, and get ready for work.

She decided to go ahead and get to the hospital in the hopes of visiting her aunt for a few minutes. Aunt Jane wasn't usually awake, and she never had very much to say, but when she was able, she listened attentively, and much as Carrie loved her Aunt Hyacinth, it was sometimes much nicer to talk to someone who didn't judge her or tell her to get over it.

"Hi, Aunt Jane."

Aunt Jane looked up at Carrie with bleary brown eyes, and her face lit up in a warm smile.. "Good evening, Rose," she said.

"It's Carrie, Aunt Jane."

Aunt Jane nodded, "Yes, yes, of course, dear. Won't you come and sit with me awhile?"

Carrie sat beside Aunt Jane's bed.

"You look troubled, dear," said Aunt Jane. "Is there something on your mind?"

"I've been having these awful dreams, Auntie... Strange, disturbing...I've been trapped in a room of fire, guarded by a dragon...and I keep hearing this woman laughing..."

"Maleficent."

"What?"

"The woman. Her name is Maleficent."

"No, Auntie. Her name isn't Maleficent. I hardly even know her. She was in the hospital yesterday."

"Don't you let those dreams worry you, Rose. They're only the after-effects of her curse. Maleficent is trying to drive you mad. I imagine it must be her worst fear, losing her mind—that's all she has, after all. But don't you let her do it, Rose. Don't you let her."

"Auntie," said Carrie, touching Aunt Jane's arm, "Maleficent is a character in a cartoon movie."

"What?" Aunt Jane's brow furrowed.

"Nevermind," Carrie shook her head. This was the most Aunt Jane had spoken to her, or to anyone in...well, in as long as she could remember. Perhaps it was irresponsible of her as a nurse to say what she said next, but as a niece, all she wanted was for her Aunt Jane to talk to her. "So Maleficent. She's trying to drive me mad. But I won't let her."

"That's right, dearie," said Aunt Jane, taking Carrie's hands in her own. "I know you'll be all right, though. You have a strong mind. Me? I'd have lost mine years ago if it weren't attached to my shoulders!"

Carrie allowed—and perhaps encouraged—Aunt Jane to continue rambling about Maleficent and fairies and the Enchanted Forest for upwards of an hour. Around that time, Aunt Jane drifted off to sleep mid-sentence, and Carrie cradled her head in her hands, unable to decide whether she ought to feel happy or sad.

"You lied to me," said a cold voice from behind her.

Carrie jumped out of her chair and quickly wiped the tears from her face before she turned around. "What?"

Belinda Irving stood in the doorway. She was the only person Carrie had ever witnessed who managed to look imposing in a hospital gown. "You told me I'd be released in the morning. It's nearly sunset."

"I, uh...I'm sorry, Ms. Irving," said Carrie, wringing her hands. "Dr. Whale is..." possibly drunk. Probably drunk. Not in the office today. Yes. That one.

"I know perfectly well what Dr. Whale is," Ms. Irving responded crisply.

To her surprise, Carrie felt herself smiling. "Well. Anyway, I have no authority to release you."

"Suppose I left," said Ms. Irving, quirking one eyebrow.

Carrie's smile widened against her will. "You'd get me in a lot of trouble," she said, tilting her head. "That would make two patients who literally walked out of the hospital on my watch."

"Perhaps you're not very good at your job."

"Perhaps I have uncooperative patients," Carrie countered, feeling almost giddy at this sudden shift in her least favourite charge's mood. "What would you have me do? Restrain you?"

Ms. Irving's cold blue eyes suddenly twinkled with amusement. "I'd like to see you try. Though generally I prefer to do the restraining."

Carrie frowned. "What?"

Ms. Irving averted her eyes, and the faintest hint of a smile played at the corners of her lips. "Nevermind. Fortunately for you, I've decided I'll agree to stay one more night. So long as you can assure me I'll be released first thing in the morning."

Carrie was very abruptly reminded that this woman made her extremely nervous. "I wish I could, but I don't know what would happen to me if I made you a promise that turned out to be false."

Ms. Irving turned her eyes on Carrie again. The flicker of amusement from earlier was gone, and once again they were cold and emotionless. "It wouldn't be the first time," she replied, then turned and left the room.

* * *

About ten minutes into the evening, Ruby decided that this social group was her worst idea of all time. She'd invited Ashley, who was down because of her problems with her boyfriend. Mary Margaret was down because that was just her cheery disposition, and Emma was completely preoccupied with the after-effects of the mine explosion, and probably whatever the mayor had said to her this morning.

Ruby made a couple of feeble attempts at conversation, but she quickly gave up when she realized none of her companions were even pretending to listen. Occasionally one of them would just start off on a monologue about her distress, and the others would nod their half-acknowledgement and go back to staring at their untouched drinks. She scanned the room for more enjoyable company, and found far better than she'd bargained for.

Behind the bar, wearing that same wicked smile along with another silky and form-fitting dress was none other than Lacey French. She was being engaged in conversation by a handful of men, most of whom were twice her age or more. Subconsciously, Ruby leaned her cheek against her hand and sighed.

Lacey's eyes fell upon Ruby and she raised her eyebrows. Ignoring something one of her admirers had said to her, she pointed to Ruby and then crooked her finger in a gesture of beckoning.

Ruby straightened her posture in surprise.

"...just feel like I need some time with my guy, you know? But he's always working, and I'm always with the baby, and we're always tired, and..."

"Excuse me for a minute..." Ruby murmured.

"We meet again," said Lacey as Ruby approached. "Are you following me?"

Ruby smiled. "You don't seem too worried about it."

"At least you're a cute stalker," said Lacey with a wink. She turned around and grabbed something off the shelf, and poured two shots. "Cheers," she said, handing one to Ruby.

"Cheers," Ruby responded.

* * *

Lacey did her best to ignore the half-dozen men gawking as she and Ruby chatted over drinks and the occasional shot. As the night went on, it became easier. One by one, Ruby's friends either came over to say goodbye or merely slunk off to the door without so much as a word, and by the time 2 A.M. rolled around, Lacey had no qualms about punctuating something she'd said by leaning over the bar to kiss Ruby on the nose before she started cleaning up for the night.

She did it in the hopes that it would be enough to entice Ruby into sticking around until she was off for the night, and her ill-formed plan seemed to have been quite enough. Ruby sat at the bar and chatted with her until only a handful of customers still lingered, and Lacey's boss came in to clear them out. Mercifully, Mr. Gold wasn't among them tonight. Though of course Lacey knew better than to assume he wouldn't be lurking about outside waiting for her, she hoped he wouldn't make a scene if she wasn't alone.

When Lacey was dismissed for the night, she hooked her arm in Ruby's and all but dragged her to the door, anxious to inspect the veracity of her vague recollections of the previous evening as having been extremely enjoyable.

Lacey's apartment wasn't nearly as nice as Ruby's room. It was small and dingy, ridden with signs of disrepair, and not especially tidy, either. However she found that that didn't matter very much to her when she closed the door and Ruby pressed her up against it, lips pausing just a breath away from her own in a moment's hesitation.

Lacey closed the gap between them, threading her fingers through Ruby's long, dark hair, which was just as soft and silky as it looked.

When the tips of their tongues brushed against one another, a shiver ran through Lacey's body and she had to steady her hands on Ruby's shoulders. Ruby's hands rested lightly on Lacey's waist, which Lacey supposed was pleasant enough, but she quickly found she longed for more. She pushed Ruby's hands down to her backside and hooked a leg around Ruby's thigh in an effort to pull her closer, but the fitted dresses they both wore were quickly becoming a hindrance. Lacey fumbled with the buttons on the back of Ruby's dress in her anxiousness to rid her of it. Ruby responded by finding the zipper on the back of Lacey's dress and making quick work of it.

Ruby's lips tasted like the last drink Lacey had given her-sweet, citrusy, with only the faintest burn of vodka. Her neck smelled like some kind of lotion or wash and it tasted ever so slightly salty, the effect of all the body heat radiating throughout the bar where they'd spent their evening. Her frame was slender, and Lacey paid particular attention to her prominent collarbones and the curve of her shoulders as she walked Ruby over to her bed and pushed her gently backward.

This was entirely unsuccessful and ended in the both of them collapsing clumsily onto the floor next to the bed, still partially entangled in their dresses and giggling helplessly between kisses as they tried to help one another up.

By the time they made it onto Lacey's bed, they had laughed themselves out of breath. Together they breathed a shuddering sigh and crawled to the proper sleeping position, where they curled up against one another and very quickly fell asleep, contented smiles lingering upon their lips.

Ruby awoke first, just as the sun had begun to rise. The intense delight she had felt when she'd gone to sleep was gone, and it had been replaced by a dreadful churning sensation in her stomach which was unrelated to her comparatively mild hangover.


End file.
